Lana B's Christmas Dinner

For those who don't know, Lana B is my mom. High marks for tastiness - good stuffing, yummy potatoes, some home-made rolls and my favorite - beet pickles made with beets from the garden.

The Keg

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Ian and I went out to the Keg in South Edmonton Common with some of his friends last night. We arrived post dinner so I had the tempura asparagus and snow peas and Ian had calmari. My stuff was pretty tasty, but Ian claimed the calmari was not really cooked. Mark didn't seem to mind and helped Ian finish it off.

Then a brownie sundae at the end...tasty but not much brownie at all.

Yeah, kinda neutral on the keg. Would probably be better if I were more into the meat.

Tony Roma's

My group had a Christmas Lunch on Wednesday at Tony Roma's. It started off poorly with a lost reservation for 25, but fortunately we got there somewhat early and they accomodated us. I had the honey bbq salmon with mashed potatoes and cole slaw. Fish was extremely overcooked, but aside from that, meal was ok. Not a great deal for about $16-$20 per entree.

The Best Kind of Food

I've almost fully recovered from the incidence of last weekend so I've been back to my usual habits for the most part. The week started off slow because sadly due to the weekend activity I decided to skip the union social on Tuesday. It was at Hart House instead of the Duke of York as it has been in past years and apparently the food was pretty good with some excellent lamb. Missing a free food event destroys a little part of me.

Fortunately I made up for it on Wednesday with free pizza and sushi care of marking. Unfortunately the sushi came from Sushi Time not Sushi on Bloor due to time constraints so we ended up paying more for less and worse sushi. Lesson learned ensure they order the sushi ahead of time. I called in the order and in retrospect I should have offered a little bit extra money to Sushi on Bloor for them to squeeze our order in. Maybe it wouldn't have worked but I should have tried. The pizza pizza was about the same as always. We got everyone's favorite meat lovers plus chicken. Of course it was the first to go.

Thursday was free food event #3. It was the grad school christmas party. I ordered twenty pizzas and that proved to be more than sufficent. I didn't ask anyone for the favorites and instead just mixed it up with a bunch of things. Meat lovers + chicken was of course a hit but so was char broiled burger pizza. I don't think anyone had that before and it was pretty good. Just like a burger. Leftovers provided for free food event #4 on Friday lunch. After 2 days of all you can eat pizza, I was up for something else but some people felt we shouldn't ignore the pizza. Friday I ate some of the potatoe chips too and those seem to have left me with a multi-day stomach ache. No more pizza or chips for a while.

Food related illness- Victim #2

Ian and I (well mostly Ian) switched to soy milk about 6 months ago. I haven't really drank milk for about 6? years or so.

Anyway, Ian was getting tired of soy and decided to switch back to cow milk. So I bought a jug last week at the grocery store. It made Ian a bit queasy, so he switched back to the soy right away. To use up the milk, I made a big thing of scalloped potatoes that I have been eating for the last couple days. Now I am sick with a stomach illness :( Perhaps the milk was bad??? Who knows???

Ian-Salmonella Survivor

Last night Ian cooked some chicken for dinner. He used the foolproof method - 5 minutes on defrost in micro-wave & 20 minutes @ 365 C in oven. He realized halfway into his chicken that it was rather raw in the middle. We know that our oven is messed up, but it now seems seriously un-reliable. Ian seemed ok, but then woke me up about 3 AM and was not doing well. About an hour later, we went to the hospital and left about 6 hours later. Ian is doing ok now, but seems like he'll need another couple of days of lounging around the house :(

Anywho, moral of this story is, if anyone wants to buy us a meat thermometer for christmas, we are in the market!

Christmas Party at Big Guy's House

Our global managing director of our group happens to work in the Mississauga office and invites the whole crowd over for a party.

This year they had the usual drinks along with some people walking around with appetizers. A surprisingly amount of veggie appetizer items, although Ian did triple up on shrimp when the guy came around! Also some lamb in pastry thingy, kind of odd but Ian seemed to like it.

Then to the "hot buffet" as people liked to call it. Some stuffed tomato and potato items with salad, carrots, salmon, stuffed beef and some chicken. I had the veggies and salmon. All pretty tasty. Ian seemed to like all the meaty stuff. Unfortunate, but the servers dished up all the stuff. Probably good in my case so I did not over-eat, but big-eating Ian did not end up getting enough to eat and didn't want to cause a spectacle by going for a second plate.

Dessert selection was some squares and cookies.

Big Fat Burritos

A few weeks back, I went to Big Fat Burritos in Kennsington Market. I've been suffering from burrito withdrawal for the last few months and I needed a fix. It was surprisingly good although it certainly doesn't compare to my Una Mas favorites or the standard hardy tacqueria style ones that I became used down in California. In my opinion it was way better than Burrito Boyz although I've heard people claim they're identical. Now this ranking may be skewed because burrito boyz charges for the guacamole while the BFB does not. In the crimes against Toronto cheap eaters, charging for guacamole is almost a capital crime (pun only partially intended).

A new twist on a old favorite

I hope that I've piqued everyone's interest with the captivating title. Ha ha, I don't really have anything that exciting!

Actually for those Atkin's type people out there who enjoy the classic apple/peach/raspberry/rhubarb crisp, try adding some raisin's the plain old boring apple. Direct quote from Ian, "What a fun twist on things." I can't lie to my faithful readers, I actually made that up, but later he did actually agree that the raisins were tasty.


Just a note that I thought of later - I'm talking about the Atkin's family, not the diet.

Ethiopian House

Today we braved the chiliness and went to Ethiopian House on Yonge by Bloor St. We ocassionally go for dinner, but always end up spending $40 or so. We ordered 1 veggie combo and 1 meaty combo and with tax, tip and an Ian ice cream on the way home were only at $20 for a similar amount of food as the dinner! Not bad value.

As usual, the food was pretty tasty and the bread was fun. Some lentils, veggie and beefy item for Ian. Who likes cutlery...not me!